The book says that the first step in losing weight is detoxification, to remove toxic overload from the body. Toxins stored in fat cells are difficult to get rid of through dieting alone. You must first detoxify the body. Thus, the most effective weight-loss programs should focus on both fat loss and detoxification, which lead to overall improved health and wellness. Raw greens can heal the body. You will detoxify your body through elimination of certain foods for ten days and reprogram your taste buds to desire healthy, nutrient-rich foods. The author states that after you complete the cleanse, you will never have to count calories or follow complicated or expensive meal plans or measure food again, as your body will naturally crave and desire healthy, natural foods.”

I opted to do a Full Cleanse, where I ‘eat’ only smoothies, snacks and water/herbal tea for 10 days.

Today I am on Day 10 and even though the experience has been eye-opening and great (losing 5.5 kg/12 lbs in 10 days, my skin has never-seen-before glow, my hair is stronger and fluffier, sleeping whole 8 hours everyday, feeling energized), I am now ready to go back eating wholefoods again.

With every challenge, I like to reward myself with a little something for accomplishing it. For this one, I have decided to break the cleanse tomorrow with making my favorite Indonesian food of late, Pampis Cakalang Pedas (Spicy shredded fish Manado style), this dish is also referred to Ikan Suwir Rica-Rica

This dish can be made with any kind of fish in the market, though I tend to go with fish from the sea with some good oil in them (have tried with tuna/maguro, salmon, mackerel/saba, amberjack/buri). Traditionally in Manado they use the ubiquitous fish there called “Cakalang” (skipjack tuna in English, or katsuo in Japanese). Lucky for me living in Japan, katsuo is very easy to come by, and therefore I can easily make this dish as often as I like!

Without further ado, let me introduce you to the wonder of Pampis Cakalang Pedas. Bon Appetit!

Thank you so much for your orders last week! I hope you’ve enjoyed your Thursday dinners, as much as I have enjoyed making them.

Please see below the menu for this Thursday, February 5th:

This week’s menu will feature two very exciting new items for you to sample as below:

Telur Pindang | Indonesian Marbled Eggs

And also our well-loved Crunchy Lemon Whole Wheat Muffins!

Crunchy lemon Whole Wheat Muffins

As a reminder please note the below regarding pick-up and drop off:

Pick up: between 5 – 7 pm at MyOrangePot.com HQ in Yoyogi 4-chome (4 minutes walk from Sangubashi station or 30 seconds walk from Yoyogi 3-chome bus stop). Pick-up address will be informed when your order is confirmed

Drop off: between 7:15 – 7:45 pm. We will meet you at the JR Yoyogi Yamanote/Sobu line West gate

A friendly reminder: our last service for the first quarter in 2015 is Thursday, February 26. Until then I will post the weekly menu to www.myorangepot.com on Sundays in the morning and hope to hear from you by noon on Tuesdays.

Many of you have expressed interest in subscribing to a mailing list for the menu. Please kindly provide your e-mail address to myorangepot@gmail.com.

One of my early memories of my mother’s kitchen is recalling that my mother always puts aside the red onion (bawang merah/shallots) peel in a ‘besek’ (wicker basket) at the corner of the kitchen. When we kids helped her peeling the little tear-jerking little red things, she will call out to us,

“Save the peels and put it in the ‘besek’! Yes, all of them, don’t throw them out. We will use it to make Telur Pindang!”

Last Thursday, when I was cooking for #Weekly_Canteen, I can hear her voice saying the very thing to me. As I industrially proceeded in peeling about 100 red onions, I consciously put all the red onion peel aside. Little by little the peel mounted up and at the end of the process, I ended up with an equivalent of big udon bowl of red onion peel.

Now what?

The only correct answer to that question now is to then do what Mama says endlessly: make yourself some Telur Pindang! Pindang is an Indonesian traditional method to preserve food, usually employing fish (ikan) and eggs (telur). The technique is native to Java and Sumatra islands (two out of the big 5 islands in Indonesian archipelago). To pindang something is a cooking process where you boil the ingredients in certain spices – usually salt, soy sauce, teak leaves, or other spices. The process gives the food dark brown color and last longer compared to plainly boiled food.

Mama walked me through the process over text messages with her typical directions: with low heat boil some eggs with a lot of salt with red onion peel, salam leaves, guava leaves and you can also add some tea leaves to make the color really red. Crack the shells midway to create the marbly coloring and so the flavor could seep through.

When inquired how much of the ingredients I should use for how many eggs, her answer was simply,

“Ya dikira-kira saja…”

(loosely translated, “Just use your own judgement, just enough…”)

So, I take this as a challenge. Yesterday was a slushy snowy day in Tokyo, I took it as the perfect opportunity to spend indoors and make this little gems. I tried three different ways to finally come to the below recipe. For your benefit I have measured and timed it so you don’t need to go wild in doing the guessing game that Mama suggested. I have also adjusted the recipe to ingredients that are readily available in ethnic supermarkets in Japan (or non tropical countries).

From the point of water boiling, after 15 minutes, lift the eggs out and place in cold water

When cool enough to handle, using the back of a spoon gently crack the shells all over, creating a spider web looking cracks. Do not peel!

Return the eggs into the pot – check if you need to add water to make sure everything is in the brownish concoction

Continue to simmer (low heat!) for about 75~105 minutes, stir occasionally. Add some water when you feel the water is gone too quickly, the eggs need to be in the water to produce a rich web/marbly coloring.

When done, remove eggs from saucepan and place in cold water. Peel eggs now and, if possible, serve with Indonesian dishes like Mama’s Mie Goreng.

**Like me – where it’s close to impossible to score any teak leaves or guava leaves, then I resort to using tea. Make sure that the tea bags of your choice don’t have strong smell like earl grey so it does not over power the other ingredients when boiling. My personal preference is white or green tea. White tea has no strong smell but green tea produces a much brighter marble web.

It is one of those hot Summer days that came way too early and lingered on too long. Ramadan (the Muslim fasting month) has started 5 days ago. With 38C days and the sun torching your skin if you’re out too long, all I want to do it soak in a pool of cold water sipping a big pitcher of lemon-mint-cucumber water on ice. Alas, that is not to be, not for another 25 days anyway.

And of course, the Indonesian Festival out at Yoyogi Park has to happen right on this weekend. Boo hoo.

Much to the non-amusement of my visiting Indonesian friend, I stirred our stroll to the Indonesian festival direction. My objective was one: scoring a portion of my favorite Balinese dish a la Cafe Bali Campur called Lawar Ayam for my early morning breakfast.

What is Lawar Ayam? It is a green bean (traditionally you use snake beans) salad with shreded chicken and grated coconuts. The spices used in the magical concoction are things like garlic, pearl onion (bawang merah), chiles, bird eye chiles, shrimp paste, lime/lemon juice, pepper. The flavor is very fresh and intense and best serve with hot jasmine rice.

Mmmm. My mouth is already watering with the thought.

Purposefully, I walked to the stall where Cafe Bali Campur was located. Could I have some lawar ayam to go, please?

The good Bli (Older Brother) – chef/owner of the cafe – then told me that the Lawar dishes were gone within 2 hours after he opened shop and told me to come again tomorrow, but to be there EARLY. Like at 10 am, so I can get a few portions for my enjoyment. His Lawar Ayam has clearly lived up to its reputation, so I better listen to what he said!

One can have a strong will all he/she wants, but I should know my own limitation when at 10 am I discovered that I could not even stand the heat out when watering my plants at the balcony. I spoke with my friend Dana and she mentioned her very fit husband went for a jog this morning and came home feeling very lightheaded because the heat and humidity is unbearable.

That does it. If Zach couldn’t tolerate the heat, then maybe I shouldn’t tempt fate. I am fasting after all, and I am looking for another 9 hours of heat with no possibility of cold water.

I told myself that if I want that lawar so badly, then I should just make it myself. It may not be as addictive as The Good Bli’s, but I had given it a fair try several times before and it was delicious.

Combine beans, roasted coconuts, Base de siap in a bowl. Mix well and leave to rest

To prepare the dressing, combine chicken with Base de siap and mix well. Place chicken in a steamer case and steam in microwave for 8 minutes – don’t do it too long otherwise the chicken will cook too dry. (If you don’t have a microwave steamer case, then use the following method: Place chicken lengthwise in center of banana leaf and roll up very tightly. Place the banana leaf roll on aluminum foil and roll up again very tightly. Steam the roll for 20 minutes)

Remove chicken from the steamer and break up meat with a fork to its original minced/cubed form

Combine chicken with bean mixture, season to taste with salt, pepper and lime juice. Garnish with crispy fried shallots.

It always surprises me when some friends confessed that they have never eaten Indonesian food. Indonesia is a country with 240 million population. We seem to always gather ourselves around food. We are also spread out literally everywhere, from Japan to Suriname, Australia to Canada. So I foolishly assume that somewhere, somehow, a person would have known or met an Indonesian person, and therefore must have tried some of our foods.

“Nope, never had it before,” said one friend

“Nada,” said another

“Not even Nasi Goreng or Mie Goreng?” asked me, stubbornly

“What’s that?” asked one friend

“Never. Not ever.” said another

“Huh.” me, flummoxed. And then quickly, “Well, then we gotta do something about it.”

As a nation we have such a wide variety of food. Take Sumatra (one of the big 5 islands) on the western part of Indonesia for example, there you’ll find a wide array of curries and very hot burn-your-tongue flavors. In Java (mid central part of the country, also one of the big 5 islands), you’ll be treated with something a little more sweeter and milder. Tea and coffee are both served sweet, very sweet. The dishes will have the sambal (chilli sauce) on the side, rather than in the cooking as you would find in Sumatra. Further east, it will vary again, some are mild and some are very spicy. Indonesia is a world of flavor and spices.

What Indonesian food should I introduce to those who’s never had any? The one definite hit will always be… Gado-Gado. It is the ubiquitous Indonesian parboiled salad with peanut sauce. Here’s my take on Gado-Gado. It is a no fuss food, easy to make and guaranteed to please the belly. As an Indonesian typically you would have some ready peanut sauce block ready for use (my favorite one is produced by “Karangsari” or the one that my Auntie Nuk lovingly makes). However, realizing that most of my readers are out of Indonesia, I’ll also include a recipe that you can attempt.

**Optional: fried krupuk (prawn crackers or emping), I don’t particularly like this, so I won’t include in the recipe, but the general Indonesian population likes it!

Directions:

In a saucepan (enough to put 2L water in), bring the water to a boil

Add the cabbage squares in, parboil until just soften (about 1.5 minutes). Using a slotted spoon, transfer the parboiled cabbage squares into a colander to dry. Run cold tap water to prevent the vegetables to cook further. Transfer to a plate that is big enough to hold all the vegetables

Using the same boiling water, repeat the same step to bean sprouts (1 minute), carrot sticks (2 minutes), and spinach (1 minute). Careful to boil in that order. Always boil the spinach last so the green tint wouldn’t discolor the other vegetables.

Arrange the cucumber, tofu and eggs together with the parboiled vegetables

Pour the Saus Kacang (recipe below) on the salad and garnish with fried onion and krupuk.

Serves 4 hearty portions

Saus Kacang (Peanut Sauce)

Ingredients

150 grams peanuts (fried/roasted, doesn’t matter which one, but the point is to pre-cook it)

One of her signature dishes that always gets people coming back for more is this particular fried noodle dish. It is lathered with kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), oyster sauce, sesame oil, fish sauce, producing a very unique flavor that will satisfy Indonesian-Chinese cuisine enthusiast’s tastebuds.

Below is the recipe as told by the living legend, when we made it for our family lunch in Niigata.

Mama’s Mie Goreng Special

(or in English, Mama’s Fried Noodle)

Ingredients

For the noodles:

5 packs precooked egg noodles (the kind you get for yakisoba in Japan, or any egg noodles would work, whatever you have access to, but enough amount for 5 servings)

3 tbsp oyster sauce

5 tbsp kecap manis**

1 tbsp sesame oil

salt and white pepper, to taste

For the toppings:

250 grams skinless chicken breast, thinly sliced

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp corn starch

a pinch of salt

a pinch of white pepper

250 grams shrimp (peeled and deveined)

10 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced and chopped

3 tbsp vegetable oil (you can add as you go along, if you feel that there is not enough oil to stir fry everything)

3 bunches of bok choy, chopped, separate the stalks from the leaves

2 large eggs

Directions:

Immediately marinate the noodles with the oyster sauce, kecap manis and sesame oil. The longer you can marinate it the better, but if you have 1 hour that should be enough. Mama usually uses a bit more sesame oil (approximately 3 tbsps), but I adjusted it down as I think depending on the brand the flavor of the oil could overwhelm.

Prepare chicken and marinate in fish sauce, corn starch and salt and pepper for about 15 minutes or more

Heat oil in a large wok in medium heat.

Once hot, saute the garlic until fragrant

Then add the chicken mixture, and saute until just cooked (change color on the outside)

Add the small prawns to the wok, and stir fry for about a minute or so. Don’t over cook.

Add the bok choy stalks, stir fry until it softens

Add the bok choy leaves, stir fry until it softens

Add the eggs, and scramble it together with the topping mix

Lastly, add in the noodles mixture into the wok, mix thoroughly (careful not to butcher the noodle strands!). Once mixed, cover the wok, lower the heat and let the mixture continue cooking for another 5 minutes or so

Correct seasoning

Serve immediately

Note:

You can always change the protein and the vegetables, depending on what you have available. Mama has made variations of this recipe using cabbage, bean sprouts, sliced carrots.

**There is no good substitute for kecap manis. You really need to somehow source one. There are a couple of International Shops in Tokyo that carry this, or you can also get them online. My favorite kecap manis brand is “Bango”, but any other brands should work fine as an alternative.